


Nice Boys

by TheHuskyDragon



Series: We’re all going forward/none of us are going back [9]
Category: Death Stranding (Video Games)
Genre: Basically Sam comes to terms he’s Gay, Filler tbh, Idiots in Love, M/M, Masturbation, Pining, Sam spends time with his daughter, Unrequited Crush, idk what to tag Sam is just gay but doesn’t realize it, sam has to relax but he Cant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:41:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21999145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheHuskyDragon/pseuds/TheHuskyDragon
Summary: Sam has to relax. Literally at all. Cmon it’s not that difficult.(12/11) added a scene at the end :D
Relationships: BB-28 | Louise & Sam Porter Bridges, Sam Porter Bridges & Clifford Unger, Sam Porter Bridges/Higgs Monaghan, very minor deadsam
Series: We’re all going forward/none of us are going back [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1551493
Comments: 3
Kudos: 131





	Nice Boys

**Author's Note:**

> Shitty summary is shitty :,D this chapter was hell and I hope it’s not obvious. I have!! No idea how to write a positive father figure _or!_ children! It’s a big yikes
> 
> Title from the song by TEMPOREX.

“Alright, Sam,” Deadman said. He’d just finished stitching up Sam’s side and came back into view after washing his hands. He’s still dressed in the red coat he stitched Sam up in. “You are going to need to rest and not port for at  _ least _ a week.”

The knife hadn’t hit anything vital, but Sam was  _ sore _ . He just wanted to take a hot shower, get Lou, and sleep with…

He rubs a dry hand against his face, scratches at his jaw like it’ll remove the feeling of bugs under his skin. He tries not to yawn.

“He gonna be okay, Deadman?” Sam didn’t look at the other man. He almost feared what expression lay on his face. He shrugged his shoulder to resist the urge to itch at the sewn wound. He’s had a small but fair share of stitches to know the infections can be nasty. Though, maybe the weird chiral-infused bandages Deadman covered them with would help. He’s not really sure how.

“... I don’t know, Sam.” Sam heard his footsteps approach but still didn’t raise his head. He was so  _ tired _ . He doesn’t think any amount of hours could fix it. “His body is extremely exhausted and that was a lot of stress out upon it. But—“ he steps into view, rocking on his heels, “it might be days until he wakes up. Especially because his body is so unused to having low DOOMS again. He doesn’t have the energy he’s used to. And Sam, you  _ need _ to rest too, so help me if I see you at the terminal—“

“Can I see him?” 

Sam looks up at Deadman. The glare on his glasses hides his expression. 

  
  
  


Higgs looked peaceful when he’s asleep. 

He’d been cleaned up before he was hooked up to various wires and what-not. The steady, slow beep of the heart monitor is white noise to Sam. Even clean of blood, he’s still got a nasty black eye from beforehand. He has deep eye bags. How long has he gone without sleep? Sam wonders if exhaustion or insomnia feels different hooked on chiral energy and high DOOMS. 

When Higgs is in his underclothes like this, he can see how  _ scrawny _ he is. Eating mostly pizza and drinking shitty sodas and even shittier beer couldn’t be healthy, christ. That and constantly feeding off the chiral matter in the air? It had to fuck with his eating more. 

His lion is under the bed he’s on; as under as it can be, that is. The large beast heaves deep breaths as it, too, sleeps. Sam may never be able to understand how the hell the BT catchers work, no matter how much Amelie or Heartman or Higgs explains it. Wouldn’t the thing disappear after something like that? Especially with his lowered DOOMS. That couldn’t help his body heal itself... 

Sam keeps his hands off the still body in front of him. Not that he’d expect himself to do otherwise. This feels horribly,  _ horribly _ familiar, yet totally new to him.  _ Fuck _ . 

It— it feels like this is all  _ Sam’s _ fault. He’s the one that pushed both of them into the second camp, after all. But everything had been going so well. 

Fuck this shit. Fuck porting and the MULEs and all this DOOMS shit. 

He feels a warm hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t shrug it off. 

“How about you go see Cliff and Lou? You could relax with them, yes?” Sam goes back to look at Higgs’ face before stepping back from the bed. “And remember what I said: _ no porting _ !”

* * *

“Sam! There you are,” said Cliff. Lou, in reply to seeing her own father, squealed in happiness and reached out. “I had heard what happened. You feeling better?”

_ That _ was a hard question when it shouldn’t be. “With the ass load of drugs Deadman pumped into me? Hard to not,” it’s easy to joke even with the stress-induced headache behind his eyes.

Lou was wearing a little onesie based off an otter. The body was a dark brown with an off-white belly. The hood had fat white cheeks and button eyes. It even had teeny little ears.

It’s cute.  _ Adorable _ , even, with Louise in it. He feels like he could shed a tear from cute-ness if he had any energy left. 

Or any tears.

The sight of his dad and daughter together draws a sigh out of Sam either way. 

So he sits next to them on the couch. He doesn’t think he could possibly stand for much longer. He lowers Lou onto his lap and she happily leans on his chest. He’d noticed the mostly empty bottle by his feet, so he resumes patting Lou on her back just as he’d been doing. There’s a horrible cramp growing from the wound, and no matter how much he wiggles, it doesn’t uncramp. 

“How is he?”

He almost asks who? automatically, even though he knows who he is. 

“Probably about as good as he can be,”

Cliff makes a thoughtful noise in his throat. They’re facing a large window. It overlooks a fair landscape beside the city. Sam thinks it looks pretty damn nice, you can see the sunset from here. 

Lou’s little hand buries itself in the fabric of Sam’s shirt. The minute movement against his wound, even with the bandages makes his eye twitch. He rubs his hand against Lou’s back. she babbles nonsense as she sucks on her hand. Sam carefully removes her hand and puts in her pacifier in replacement. 

Sam chews on the inside of his cheek as he lays back against the couch the two of them were laying on. How much did Cliff know about Higgs? Did he know they were… together?  _ Were _ he and Higgs even “together”? He can never tell. To Sam, Higgs just seemed obsessive. The walls of pictures don’t offset him. 

“It’s impressive,” Cliff starts. Sam turns his head slightly towards him. “His beast, I mean. Let him know I would like to see what he can come up with,”

“I don’t think much,” Sam says, “I’ve seen the lions and this— this weird  _ dolphin thing _ . There’s also a whale,” he easily counts off the BTs Higgs has sent him against.

“A  _ whale _ ?” Cliff asks; he sounds surprised. “Was it life-sized?”

“Far as I know. Had to fight the damn thing.”

Cliff lets out a whistle as he taps black-stained fingers on his leg. The leg is crossed over the other.

“That boy has a lot of potential, Sam,” Cliff remarks. He’s got this easy ghost of a smile when he says it. It softens the hard edges of his face. “I don’t know everything that happened to him but it’s a damn shame he had to go through with all that.” Cliff turns to Sam then, “You too, Sam. I hate you had to suffer for us all.”

Sam huffs, completely clueless on how to react. Cliff’s genuine words make his chest constrict. “It wasn’t your fault. Hate to say it, but it was Amelie who did all this shit… she did bring you back, though. Think she brought Higgs back too.”

“Higgsthth,” Lou helpfully adds. Sam and Cliff both laugh as she turns her big eyes up to Sam.

“She’s been saying his name, you know,” he says as he reaches over so she can grab onto his finger. He almost says something about the tar on his fingers, but Lou’s hands remain clean. He wonders if the stains can come off; he hasn’t seen the trail running down his face come off.

“... has she?”

“Yes. It’s odd, though. Doesn’t she hate him?”

“Sure does, she always had. Even when she was still in her pod.” Sam cleans the spit from her mouth as he replies, “eh. I guess she has her reasons.” Lou opens her mouth and  _ noms _ on Sam’s finger. 

He barely hides his reaction at those words. Fuck. 

“And  _ what _ has he done?” Cliff asks, tone low, slowly turning his head to look at him. Just as Sam expected. Welp…

“Just-- normal villain shit. Y’know. Taunting me and having me fight his, err. Beasts.” Sam sheepishly clears his throat and tries to act like he’s not defensive.

“ _ And _ ?” Cliff asks impatiently, like Sam is the one in trouble. “How many of those hands are because of him? Did he ever hurt Louise? I  _ swear _ , that boy--”

“Jesus, let me speak, won’t ya?”

“Sam Unger.  _ How many times _ has Higgs killed you,”

_ Christ _ , the following look Cliff gives him could make him shit bricks. He clears his throat to get past the lump in his throat. He huffs again. “I dunno… maybe only one, two? Honestly, he’s barely done  _ shit _ himself. I’m sure if he wasn’t-- wasn’t under Amelie’s control, he wouldn’t have done it all-- at all.” he says. He doesn’t bother looking at Cliff. Doesn’t think he could  _ handle _ it. Instead, he watches Lou and how she inspects the world around her. The way her eyes sparkle in the orange light. Would Cliff know what Fragile had gone through?

“Higgs’ lion has grown since the last time you’ve seen him.” he tries to change the subject.

“Has it, now? Perhaps I’ll visit next time I’m by the infirmary.” Cliff says. He relaxes minutely and loses the hard edges of anger on his face. Sam feels that Cliff knows there’s still  _ something _ he isn’t telling him. He thankfully lets it go, though.

Sam finds that he himself would really like to see Higgs. He tells Cliff he wouldn’t mind going now.

“You sure? You should keep resting.”

What Sam is  _ sure of _ is that he’d like people let him fucking  _ choose _ his own shit for once.

“I could honestly go insane if I sit for too long. If Deadman won’t let me port cargo for a while, I could at least port my own ass and Lou places instead.”

Cliff gives a little  _ Hmph! _ at that and stands up. He helps stand up too. Each time he steps, a dull thrum of pain rings through his left side. It’s easy to put to the back of his mind, going through a near-extinction event outweighs probably any injury he can get.

Lou lets out a breathy “whoaaaa” at the bright change in lighting. He’d agree with her. Hospital lighting was always  _ asinine _ . Cliff whistles through his teeth when he sees the state Higgs is in. Sam doesn’t know how, but he nearly kicks Mekal walking to the bed he’s under.

Cliff looks down surprised and gasps at viewing the large beast. Lou herself lets out an excited noise. Cliff is not hesitant to kneel down and lay a hand on the BT.

Of course, not a single... drop of tar moves at the contact. It’s odd to see a ghost— as “ghost” as tar can be— still  _ breathe _ . Its stomach rises and lowers with the low sounds as air goes through the holes in the masks.

There’s an unnatural crack diagonal in the mask. One of the horns is chipped. In the crack and chip, it almost seems like it had been bleeding. Mekal’s whole body is just barely solid. He’s tried sticking his hand through its body when it’s at its most ghostly. It didn’t work.

Cliff presses the tips of his fingers into it and almost marvels at the slight give. He slides his hand down its flank and turns his head to look at the tail. It’s long, probably as long as the rest of the body. It’s thin, too, and at the end are three golden spikes. It twitches just like a normal cat’s --if Sam recalls correctly-- when it isn’t knocked out like this.

Sam watches Cliff for a few more minutes until he stands back up. He adjusts Lou until she nearly wriggles free. Sam puts her on the floor and she walk-crawls her way to Mekal. Mumbling about “ _ kiiittyyy _ ” through her pacifier. 

Sam straightens back up. He barely feels the pain in his side. He thoughtlessly moves a strand of hair off of Higgs’ face. The tattoos are so  _ stupid _ yet so…  _ Higgs _ . 

He pulls his hand away when he realizes he’d put it over the man’s cheeks. 

“Do you like him?” Cliff asks. His voice is quiet like he’d wake Higgs up. 

“Sure I do. He’s nice,” Sam replies easily. 

“Do you like him like you liked  _ Lucy _ , or how you like  _ Deadman _ ?”

The question is  _ entirely unfair _ and leaves Sam speechless. It’s  _ bullshit _ , really. To ask him something like that.  _ Fuck _ . 

Sam opens and closes his mouth multiple times. He refuses to turn towards his father, even as he feels his eyes bore into him. 

_ Ffffuck _ . 

He didn’t even  _ know _ the answer to the question himself. 

God— _ damn _ it. 

“Neither,” he says. Mainly just to say something. To stop the eyes fixated on him. 

“Neither?” Parrots Cliff. The word isn’t in disbelief, more like he didn’t expect the answer. “How so?”

Sam hides his irritation by answering with a grumble. Lou more or less falls against his leg. She looks up at Cliff, wobbling on her feet. She lets out semi-coherent streams of words. She excitedly says “kitty!” again, still muffled by the pacifier. 

“It sure is,” he says quietly. Why was the room so  _ damn quiet _ . 

There’s a horrible smile on his face. Like Cliff  _ knows _ something.  _ The cat that caught the canary.  _

But…  _ what _ ? What could he have  _ possibly _ gotten from that answer? That was maybe one of the most vague answers he could’ve gotten. There’s no game here but Sam feels like he’s lost. 

Cliff hums, “I know how you feel though, Sam. To have someone out like this, unable to help them.” It takes a moment for Sam to understand, but he gasps lightly when he does. “Though,” he turns his sight to Lou, who’s gone back to patting Mekal’s flank. “At least you don’t have a BB stuck in a pod, huh?”

Sam chuckles despite himself. “Yeah. Dealt with  _ that _ already.”

Before Cliff could say anymore, Deadman walked into the room. 

“You two!” He exclaimed. “Can you get that thing  _ out _ of here? I swear, it’s been a nuisance ever since I first saw it!”

Deadman was pointing an accusatory finger at Mekal. 

“How?” Said Sam, “didn’t you tell me to not lift anything heavy?”

Deadman thought for a solution. “What about you, Cliff? Any way you can get this  _ pest _ out of here?”

“I don’t know  _ how _ he’s in your way but… if this thing is as heavy as it looks…  _ unless— _ “

In a moment, Cliff’s unfortunately familiar skeletal soldiers appear. They are completely unarmed and only clothed in thin shirts and slacks. They look completely similar and Sam wonders if they’re based off one person, or four different people. Lou, to Sam’s horror, wobbles her way toward them happily, past Cliff. Her arms are out reaching for them. He’s stuck in place when one of them bends down to keep her from falling. Had…  _ does Cliff use these skeletons with Lou??  _ He will  _ definitely _ need to question him at some point. 

“We can, uh… take it to my room.”

Cliff nods his head at the group. Immediately they go to Mekal and begin to move it. Two pull at its limbs, dragging the feline out from under the bed. Then, all four hoist the animal up. For fucking  _ skeletons _ , it looks  _ effortless _ .  _ It’s a whole ass lion BT _ . It  _ can’t _ be light. Jesus fuck. 

The four ghosts walk in unison. Not a single trip or stumble. Mekal almost looks funny like this, long tail limp and head hanging down. Sam’s sure that if it was a real lion, it’s tongue would be sticking out. 

“Good riddance,” Deadman comments when they leave the room. 

In his private room, the skeletons set Mekal down in front of the weapon’s display case. Which is fine as he won’t be allowed to use them. Lou again attempts to reach the “kitty”, but Sam keeps holding her. Of course, being a literal  _ baby _ and refusing to be denied  _ Simple Pleasures _ , she begins crying. Sam pats her back but doesn’t let her go. She softly kicks her feet, nudging against his stab wound. He grunts out a curse from the following pain. He softly pinches Lou’s side, knowing she’s ticklish there. She tries to continue crying behind her giggles. 

Cliff laughs quietly. He’s got his arms crossed over his chest. He’s looking at Sam with a pleasant look in his eyes. Lou sniffles wetly. 

Sam smiles back. 

“Why don’t you stay here and relax? I’ll watch Lou.” Sam hands her over, which reignites her crying. Cliff pays his shoulder, “take a nap, huh? Try to distract yourself,”

* * *

_ Relax _ ? How the hell is he supposed to relax?

He’d take more strenuous deliveries to distract himself, but that’s out of the question now. Higgs would have no qualms about “ _ helping him relax _ ”, but that’s  _ also _ out of the question. 

_ Well _ ...

He sighs, like this is some chore, snaking his hand down his front. 

Sam doesn’t even jack off often— it’s a rare event that he doesn’t usually need. Especially with Higgs, he’s more than satisfying… but now that Higgs is out of commission…

Sam surprises himself with how much it hurts to think of Higgs in pain, of Higgs being anything but happy… what  _ happened _ ? He was a royal pain in his ass and now… 

Fuck… 

“ _ Fuck _ .”

He  _ loves _ him… he does… Sam can’t deny it, especially when it’s probably so obvious to others. He doesn’t ignore Higgs’ past villainy but… it wasn’t his fault, at least not entirely… he seems genuinely sorry for it, even though Amelie made him do the things he’d done. 

_ Relax _ ...

Sam’s hand dips past the waistband of his pants. 

Does he  _ really _ love Higgs? Or does he just feel obligated to… protect this broken man?

_ Cmon, it can’t be that hard to relax.  _

He palms at himself still confined in his underwear, feeling himself thicken up. He lays his head on his other arm, trying to find something to focus on, ending up just closing his eyes. 

He feels so…  _ inexperienced _ with masturbating. Of course he’s done it before, but most times it was just to take care of an erection or to calm his nerves. He tries to think of someone,  _ anyone _ . A stereotypical woman— what does he like in women??— Lucy; hell, Fragile even, but no thoughts stick. 

_ Higgs… _ his stupid, eyebrow-less,  _ handsome _ face… the way he feels, inside and out… how he talks, acts; his strange desperation and obsessiveness…

“... goddamn,” Sam spits. He sits up and wrestles his pants and briefs off, throwing them to the side. He looks down at his groin like it’s the sole provider of his problems. He’s half hard, cock starting to redden between his splayed open legs. 

Fucking—  _ fine _ . He likes Higgs, fucking  _ loves _ him. He doesn’t know what higher power thought it was funny for him to fall in love with an ex-terrorist, but here he is. He wants to kiss Higgs, put a ring on his finger. 

Sam refuses to think of “what if it’s like Lucy?” Because it’s  _ not _ . It’s not going to end that way. Higgs— well, he hopes Higgs loves him too, doesn’t just want to fix him like he isn’t broken himself. 

Sam settles back down with a sigh. Wrapping a hand around himself, he starts a leisure pace, squeezing the head. With his free hand he gently rakes his nails along the inside of his thigh. He’s helpless but to imagine it’s Higgs, trying to coax noises out of Sam… it’s not hard to do so, he’s already letting out breathy sighs into the empty air. 

Higgs would nag him about being so noisy, yet in the same breath praise him for being so vocal, “ _ what would I do without you, Sam? You’re everything to me, _ ”

The knot in his belly tightens. 

The image of Higgs’ eyes, bright with love— for  _ Sam, just for Sam _ — crosses his mind. His grip around himself tightens. He’s leaking now and he runs the palm of his hand over his weeping tip. 

Tossing his legs open wider to massage at his balls. Having to focus on the uneven pace of his hand, the hand around his sack and the racing thoughts of Higgs… it’s a lot. 

Just as he’s about to peak, he digs his nails into his taint, just like— “h-Higgs..!”

His hips rock up off the mattress. His cum spatters up his belly, pooling in the contours of muscles as his eyes close. Stars burst behind his eyelids as he rides out the waves of his orgasm. 

“...Fuck…”

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr is Higgs-the-god. I go Full Nasty sometimes and if I’m able to write literally anything ever I’ll... explore what I’ve brainstormed (and oh boy have I been)
> 
> Leave a kudos or comment! Hope y’all enjoyed this chapter :]


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